Initial investigation of prevention of ASD in infants at risk

The primary purpose of early detection of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is to prevent or mitigate the full onset of autism and its associated severe disabilities. Current studies of the earliest symptoms of ASD are opening up the possibility of being able to identify autism risk in infants before their first birthday, allowing for early identification and intervention; however, there are currently no empirically validated treatments for children with ASD under 2 years of age. The goal of this project is to develop and test an intervention for 6-11 month old infants at risk for ASD through intervention techniques delivered by parents/caretakers during their daily caretaking activities with the infant and taught to parents during weekly individual parent-child play sessions. The intervention will be piloted with eight at-risk and symptomatic infant siblings of an older child with autism and will focus on using positive behavioral techniques to increase child gaze, intentional communicative vocalizations, shared toy play, emotion sharing, and early stages of joint attention.